Jenna Lee ASA002 A03 Week 1

          COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease that's currently affecting hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide. Every day, the number of cases is increasing by the thousands and so is the level of fear in the people. A couple months ago, when the Coronavirus outbreak slowly engulfed the United States, the CDC advised that only infected individuals should wear masks when going outside. People followed the CDC's advice, and it was a rare sight to even find one person wearing a mask outside.
          During my winter quarter at UC Davis, I began to notice a pattern; it was mostly only the Chinese International students who wore masks, and the majority of them didn't seem sick. I believe they were wearing masks to simply better protect themselves. Unfortunately, I found a number of people avoiding these students when they entered the Unitrans bus or even when they walked around campus. I'd like to believe that the avoidance was caused by the CDC's announcement that only infected individuals should wear masks. Simply put, I wanted to believe that people avoided these international students due to the belief that they were probably infected, hence the mask. However, deep inside, I knew the avoidance and stares were most likely caused by racism, as the virus had first been discovered in Wuhan, China. This racist attitude continued as the number of cases in the United States surged, and soon enough, it seemed that people in the US were beginning to act xenophobic to all individuals from East Asian countries (China, South Korea, etc.).
          In the article "Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia" by Valverde, the author mentions how she "also experienced prejudice as a result of inter-ethnic tensions and class biases" (Valverde, 2013, pg. 389). Valverde elaborates by explaining how her racial background caused her colleagues to view her as inferior. This excerpt was especially disheartening because (as a Korean) after the Coronavirus outbreak, I could definitely relate to this sense of racial discrimination.
          The numbers of coronavirus cases in the US are striking up by the day, currently with over 160,000 cases and over 2,800 deaths. The CDC still hasn't advised the general public to wear masks, and the few healthy individuals who are wearing masks are still facing the occasional stares and words of discrimination.

Question
Why doesn’t the CDC advise the general public to wear masks?

References
Valverde, Kieu-Linh Caroline (2013) "Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia," Seattle Journal for Social Justice: Vol. 12: Iss. 2, Article 5.
Au, A. (2020). [Photograph of an anti-Chinese racism rally at SF's Chinatown]. Retrieved from https://www.liberationnews.org/sf-chinatown-and-supporters-call-for-unity-against-fear-of-coronavirus-and-anti-chinese-racism/